Manage Subscriptions · Subscribe Now · F.A.Q.'s
HOME · Saturday, May 17, 2008
Search Engine Optimization
SEO Report Card: Golfgods.com
Overall GPA: B-
By: Stephan Spencer
Comments: 0
This time around we're going to be taking a slightly different tack, as I was privy to a redesign in-the-making–of golf equipment seller Golfgods.com – with numerous SEO and usability improvements, along with a shift in ecommerce platforms. In fact, by the time this article ends up in print, the site revamp will be live. Jason Mischel, President of Golfgods.com explains: “We currently receive about 5,000 - 6,000 unique visitors per day to our site but much of it is of very poor quality because of the search-engine-optimization tactics employed by the previous regime. I don’t understand it fully but they used a lot of doorway pages (although they refused to call them that) using variations of common golf brand names.”
Let’s have a closer look at their current site, which at first glance isn’t in too bad of shape, with a No. 6 position in Google for “golf clubs” and a large number of pages indexed.
- Their web server responds to www.golfgods.org without doing the proper kind of redirect to www.golfgods.com, resulting in duplicate pages in the engines (e.g. 67 pages in Google).
- Inbound links of any real importance are in short supply. The Google PageRank score for the home page is 4 out of 10, which is quite low considering that PageRank is on a logarithmic scale.
- The home page needs more keyword-rich body copy that isn't link text. Curiously, I found only 2 occurrences of the phrase “golf clubs” in the body copy, and it was near the bottom of the page. (And no, Alt attributes don’t count!)
- The HTML code is very bloated with unnecessary elements like several hundred lines of lots of inline CSS and Javascript and hundreds of repetitions of font color and face attributes.
- The home page contains hundreds of links, which is way more than Google's recommended maximum of 100 per page.
- At the bottom of the home page is a "Products" link leading to a long page of nothing but internal text links. Such pages look designed to be spider food and as such are not as desirable to the search engines.
- Too much keyword repetition in "invisible" parts of the home page – e.g. "golf" and "clubs" 3X in the title tag, 6X in the meta description, and 12X in alt attributes (actually only 7X for "clubs" in the latter).
- Meta keywords tag, at 31 words, is too long. Should be half that.
- From the home page, the brand pages were only available through a dropdown nav (remember: spiders can't fill out forms). The most popular brands should be text links.
- Target other golf terms, such as "golf gifts" and "golf glossary" and terms you'd find within a golf glossary.
- It's unnecessary to include "from $14.95" in the anchor text; it dilutes the keyword focus...
- The names of the featured products in the middle of the page should be text, not graphics.
- Golfgods.com has a blog, which is very forward-thinking from both SEO and branding perspectives. Unfortunately, there are no text links to it to pass it link gain, only JavaScript-based links to individual posts which the spiders can't crawl.
BEFORE
AFTER
Advertisement
Blinklist | Del.icio.us | Furl | Ma.gnolia | Newsvine | Spurl | Reddit | Technorati
Published on Saturday, April 01, 2006
Comments:
Ecommerce Articles
- Browse All Articles
- Browse our complete archive of ecommerce articles.
- Accounting, Management & Legal
- Ecommerce articles related to managing a small business including ecommerce accounting, business strategy and legal considerations.
- Conversion & Usability
- Online business articles about converting web site visitors into customers and how to gauge and improve your business website's usability.
- Development & Programming
- Articles to help designers, developers and programmers create successful, search engine friendly ecommerce websites and improve existing ones.
- Hosting, Infrastructure & Software
- Articles for ecommerce businesses about ecommerce web hosting, business infrastructure, business strategy and helpful ecommerce & small business software.
- Interviews & Profiles
- Interviews with prominent ecommerce business personalities and profiles of successful online businesses.
- Inventory & Shipping
- Ecommerce articles about inventory management, ecommerce order fulfillment and product shipping considerations.
- Marketing & Revenue Growth
- Articles relating to online marketing, email marketing and using the Internet to growing your business.
- Search Engine Optimization
- Search engine optimization articles for ecommerce business owners, strategists, marketers and developers.
- Shopping Carts & Online Payments
- Articles covering ecommerce shopping cart platforms and options for choosing an online payment gateway.
- Training & Education
- Tutorials and articles providing training and education for ecommerce business owners and developers of ecommerce websites.
Search Articles
Ecommerce Community
- Ecommerce Blogs
- Read our blogs about ecommerce topics written by industry professionals.
- Community Forum
- Connect with other ecommerce professionals to trade advice and answers in our community forum.
- Podcasts
- Check out our ecommerce podcasts covering topics ranging from interviews to tutorials.
- RSS Content Feeds
- Subscribe to our RSS feeds and have fresh ecommerce content delivered to you.
Ecommerce Resources
- Free Email Newsletter
- Sign up for Ecommerce Notes, our free email newsletter for ecommerce business owners and developers.
- Ecommerce Directory
- Browse our directory of ecommerce products and services, or submit your own listing in our directory.
- Ecommerce Glossary
- Familiarize yourself with terminology or submit terms to help others with our Ecommerce Glossary.
- Events Calendar
- Find out about upcoming ecommerce events or invite other ecommerce professionals by posting your own event.
- Press Releases
- Browse ecommerce related press releases and post your own press release for distribution.
- Ecommerce Store & Back Issues
- Pick up back issues of Practical eCommerce magazine along with other merchandise from Practical Ecommerce
About Practical eCommerce
- Frequently Asked Questions
- Look at frequently asked questions regarded using our website, subscribing to our magazine and more.
- Advertising Information
- Information about advertising in Practical eCommerce magazine, on our website, or in our email newsletters.
- Editorial Sharing
- Learn about options for sharing our content with your visitors, customers or employees.
- About Us
- Learn more about Practical Ecommerce magazine and meet our staff.
- Contact Us
- Contact Practical Ecommerce at any time for more information. We'd love to hear from you.
Advertisement
Copyright 2007 Confluence Distribution, Inc. and Practical eCommerce.
All Rights Reserved.
There are no comments posted for this article.